Sen. John McCain may do well tonight, but I am not convinced that he'll do what he needs to do: pacify conservatives who remain indispensable to his chances. We could end the night with a renewed three-way GOP race in which McCain gets only modest--and not nearly enough--conservative support.

The radio talk-show hosts I talked to in the last hour are convinced that the renewed strength of Mike Huckabee is all a plot by the McCain campaign to ruin Mitt Romney. But if there is any truth to that (and in West Virginia I think there was), the McCain campaign was being too cute by half. They may weaken Romney but give Huckabee a chance to position himself as the populist Son of the South.

And no Republican can win the presidency without a solid South. If Huckabee wins a clutch of Southern states, he will at least be in a strong bargaining position to affect the GOP platform and maybe the choice of the vice presidential nominee.

Which could be Huckabee.